


Searching

by mjhealy



Category: Jagged Little Pill - Morissette & Ballard/Morissette/Cody
Genre: F/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:07:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24636568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjhealy/pseuds/mjhealy
Summary: MJ's curiosity gets the better of her.
Relationships: Mary Jane "MJ" Healy/Steve Healy
Kudos: 12





	Searching

**Author's Note:**

> decided to take a little break from the pregnancy fic because i missed present-day MJ and steve so here's some kinda sad hurt/comfort type stuff.
> 
> (tw for sexual trauma - absolutely no actual description or memories of assault are present here but it is mj working through her trauma a bit!)

Steve Healy is exceptionally good at reading his wife’s signs. Exceptionally.

It’s probably because it’s a skill he had to relearn so recently, and one he put extra care into. The knowledge that your wife harboured decades worth of devastating trauma and a secret drug addiction without your knowledge, well, it certainly forces you to rethink what kind of husband you were. He’s spent the past year trying to make up for that and re-learn how to be there for MJ even when she doesn’t ask him to be. And as a result, he’s gotten pretty good at it.

He’s paying even more attention right now, these past few weeks, as the trial rolls along. They’ve attended a bit, stayed home a bit, read the news and had days where they steer completely clear of it. Good days and bad days. He follows her lead - talks to her about what she’s feeling, or what she wants to do for Bella, when she wants to, and lets her avoid the topic when she wants to. But as they eat dinner together, the four of them, on a Friday night, he can see her brain whirring a little, see the tiny little signs she drops when something’s eating at her. The subtle extra dart of her eyes and fidgeting that she always does on days when her anxiety is a little more difficult to bear. Nothing serious - not enough for the kids to notice - but enough that he makes a mental note to see if she needs to talk later, before continuing on with the meal. 

She comes to bed late, and he’s already in their room when she appears. She’s been watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel with Frankie, an attempt to do something lighthearted together in the midst of everything. He wonders if maybe she’ll be in a slightly better mood after that, but he can still see the hint of tension he saw earlier. She gives him a smile when she enters, the kind that likely would have been convincing enough a year ago but now he can tell isn’t quite 100% real, before she goes to brush her teeth.

She eventually crawls into bed beside him, having changed into her pyjamas, and curls up into him just a little too closely. That’s his biggest tip-off of all, the fact that he can tell she wants to be held a bit more than she usually does, that she’s craving… something. Affection, or protection maybe.

“MJ,” he starts, talking quietly and sitting up. She adjusts herself so she’s laying in his lap, and he starts to stroke her hair gently.

“Mhmm?” She answers, burying herself further into him.

“Something’s on your mind,” he states. 

She looks up at him, almost a little embarrassed, and sighs. “It’s kind of… bad.” 

“I’m sure it’s not,” he assures her. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“I did something… stupid.”

Steve pulls his hand away from her. “MJ, you’re avoiding. Tell me what’s up.”

She nods. She is absolutely avoiding this, because it’s sitting in a really uncomfortable place in her chest and she doesn’t want to admit it out loud. Something she’d managed to avoid doing for years and years that finally, in one moment of weakness, had gone out the window, and has been gnawing away at her ever since. She does want to get it off her chest, though - then maybe she’ll have some peace. “I was talking to Bella this morning, about… well, that’s not really important. But after she left, I… I just, lost my mind for a second and I… I googled him.” 

“You googled…?”

“The guy who…” She can hear her therapist's voice reminding her to reckon with the words, not dance around the ones that are hard to say. “Assaulted me. Anthony. That’s his name.” 

Steve feels a pang in his stomach. She’s never referred to him by name before - and maybe Steve kind of preferred it that way. All he knew was it was a boy she'd been friends with, who she knew, and Steve tried not to think about him too much, because when he did it filled him with a rage so powerful he thought he might explode. It was easier for him to imagine some vague villainous figure who’d hurt his wife all those years ago than a human frat boy no older than Nick. And it helped him avoid the harsh truth that this man was still out there, living his life while MJ fought twenty years later to regain everything he’d stolen from her. A truth that, until now, she’d been avoiding too. And then in one single moment of overwhelming curiosity she’d ruined that for herself. Now she knew.

“Oh,” Steve replies quietly. “Are you… was that…?” He’s not quite sure what to say or ask.

“It was weird,” she sighs. “I think I thought it would… hurt more to see his face. He’s a journalist. So it was pretty easy to find stuff about him. And pictures. And then a facebook. I've always been so scared to see his face. But I don’t know, it didn’t… it was just weird.”

Steve goes back to stroking her hair, wrapping his other hand around her shoulder. “I hate him,” he says. “I’m sorry, I don’t think that’s really helpful, but… It just makes me so, so angry when I think about what he did to you… and that he never had to face it at all. Sorry, I just hate him.”

MJ almost laughs a little. “I don’t know if I do. I don’t think so.” She ponders it further, scratching her thigh. “It’s strange to think… I probably could have ruined his life. Or at least damaged it. But instead he has a wife, and kids, and I have my kids, and we both got to have our lives. Just weird. I expected to hate him more when I saw him, but I just… I felt kind of proud of myself, I guess.”

Steve gives her the tiniest smile. “Good. You should.” 

MJ frowns. “But it also… I thought it would give me more answers, but it... It didn’t answer the questions I really have.” Steve can tell she’s hesitating to say more, doing that thing where she’s not even sure what her own feelings are and she’s scared to say them out loud. He won’t push her hard, but he will nudge her.

“What do you want to know?” He gives her arm a loving rub, trying to show his support, make her feel safe enough to share. She takes a breath, still thinking, and her hands are starting to fidget more.

“I guess… I wonder if there are more, more women he… or if it was just me. And I wonder why, why he had to have _me…_ ” She trails off. Fuck, she’s getting more emotional than she’d expected to, the toll of having to vocalize these things she’s more or less avoided thinking too much about. Why _did_ he choose her, of all the girls who were there that night, of all the girls he knew, or did he do this to tons of other girls too? Were there other women out there who were suffering in the exact same way she was because of him, who also thought they were alone, who also couldn’t understand why this had happened to them, who also blamed themselves? 

She suddenly lets out a sob, catching both her and Steve off guard. Immediately he wraps both arms around her, squeezing her. She hides her face in her hands, losing control quickly, her chest starting to heave as she cries more and more intensely. 

“Oh, honey…” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.” He says that to her all the time, even when she tries to stop him, but he truly has no other way to express how deeply sorry he is for what she’s been through, for the weight she’s had to carry. He never knows how to express that, so he continues to hold her tightly as her shoulders shake in his lap, rubbing her back.

“I just wonder if…” She sniffles, trying to compose herself enough to speak clearly. “If he knows what he did, if he even realized that… that he raped me, or if he thinks it was nothing… If he knows I’ve never been the same and I’ve spent my whole life trying to recover and my _children_ suffered because of him and-“

“I know, honey,” Steve sighs, trying to stop her from getting too much more worked up, bending over and kissing the top of her head. She quiets down, closing her eyes. “But there’s just no way of knowing.” 

“I know.” MJ wipes her eyes, trying to brush away some of the tears, regain control a bit. “It would be nice to believe he’s consumed with guilt but… I also know he probably hasn’t given what happened a second thought in years. And it just seems so unfair that he ruined my life and he probably barely remembers who I am. That I have to think about it all the fucking time and he doesn’t.” 

“It’s not fair,” he agrees. She’s silent, and Steve can tell she’s got something else on the tip of her tongue, hesitating over it. 

“What?” He asks gently.

She speaks so quietly, a small whisper. “He has three kids. Daughters. All girls.” 

Steve lets out a breath, wrestling with the thoughts MJ has surely already had. “Oh,” he answers, so simply for such a complicated fact.

“And I can’t help but wonder… how he’d feel if someone did what he did to me to one of his daughters. And then I felt like a terrible person for even having that thought but… I just wonder if that changed him, having girls. If maybe he finally understands. Or if he’s still the same person who… I don’t really know what I’m saying.” Fresh tears spring to her eyes and she wipes them furiously, trying not to completely lose it all over again.

“I know what you’re saying,” Steve promises. MJ curls up tighter into him, soaking in the feeling of her husband’s protective arms around her, the love that they share. The deep trust they’ve built now, more trust than she ever thought she’d be able to achieve, that has helped her re-learn how to feel loved and valued and respected and cherished. She closes her eyes, trying to focus on nothing but that. “And it’s normal to wonder things, MJ, and no one would fault you for wanting to know more about him. But you are so much more than what he did to you, right?”

MJ nods. “I know. It’s just… kind of fucked up that he’s out there living his life while I’m… still so broken.” 

Steve looks at her intently, nudging her to open her eyes so she’ll meet his gaze. “You’re not broken, even if you feel like you are. I know you know that. You are-“

“Crying in my bed on a Friday night,” she interrupts.

“You’re an amazing mom, who raised two intelligent, caring, thoughtful kids, who has so much love and warmth and compassion and who has been through some horrible shit. You’ve dealt with things no one should have to and you’ve come out of it with humour and kindness and that is what I think of when I think of you. Not him. I think of how much I admire you. Okay?”

MJ nods slowly. Nothing she can say to that. It’s Steve’s favourite way to get through to her, to tell her all the reasons he loves her as if they’re indisputable scientific facts. “Okay. Thank you.”

“But I still hate him.” 

MJ laughs. “Well, good. I suppose one of us should.” 

They sit for a moment, MJ still laying in her husband’s lap, breathing in his scent. She’s safe now. 

“Are you ready to turn the lights out?” Steve eventually whispers, sensing she’s a little tired out.

“Mhmm.” She moves from his lap, watching as he turns the lights off and then curling up once again in his arms. 

“Goodnight my love,” he says, and MJ closes her eyes.

“Goodnight honey.”

“No more Google stalking, agreed?”

MJ laughs. “Absolutely agreed.” 

She takes a deep breath, squeezing Steve’s hand against her chest. She doesn’t want to think anymore about what Anthony’s life is like, out there in the world. She has her own life here, one that he has no place in, one she is going to keep working to free from the small grasp he still has on her. He doesn’t deserve any place in the wonderful life she’s built with Steve, and Nick, and Frankie. Nothing can take that away from her.


End file.
